Sh4.5b Lira Hospital satellite lab to boost research, diagnosis
Atwine said the laboratory will help investigate and diagnose a range of virus infections for faster treatment and that it will help the ministry respond to any disease epidemics and emergency conditions.
Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng and health ministry permanent secretary Dr Diana Atwine inspecting the machines at the new satellite Laboratory at Lira Hospital. (Photos by Joseph Ekol)
Joseph Ekol
Journalist @New Vision
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The Government has commissioned a shillings 4.5 billion satellite laboratory at Lira Regional Referral Hospital. The facility is expected to address the burden of the community travelling to Kampala for disease diagnosis.
Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng on March 14, 2025, commissioned the laboratory, which is constructed and equipped with funding from the World Bank under the COVID-19 Response and Emergency Preparedness Project (UCREPP).
Handing over the facility to the hospital management, witnessed by hundreds of people, including the local leaders, at the former Akii-Bua stadium in Lira, health ministry permanent secretary Dr Diana Atwine said the Lab belongs to the people of Lango region.
Atwine said the laboratory will help investigate and diagnose a range of virus infections for faster treatment and that it will help the ministry respond to any disease epidemics and emergency conditions.
Apart from reducing the cost of patients travelling to Kampala for diagnosis, she said even researchers in the learning institutions will use the lab to do research without going to Kampala or Nairobi.
Atwine said, the establishment of such laboratories, is a testament to the Government’s commitment to safeguard and protect the people, urging the academicians at the institutions of learning not to allow the machines to be dormant but to work closely with the hospital management to use this facility to research without moving to Kampala or Nairobi.
Health Minister Dr Jane Ruth Aceng and health ministry permanent secretary Dr Diana Atwine inspecting the machines at the new satellite Laboratory at Lira Hospital.
“The Government is committed to improving the facilities in the country to infrastructure facilities so that people get the care they deserve without travelling very far,” Atwine noted, calling upon the health workers to improve on their attitude to enable the community to access the healthcare services with ease.
Staff recruitment
On the concern of understaffing in the health sector, Atwine said the ministry is lobbying for funding to recruit more staff at the health facilities to provide quality services to the people.
The acting director of Lira Hospital, Dr Adrew Odur, said the machines installed at the lab are able to carry out a wide range of diseases, including cancer and that they will serve the greater northern Uganda in tracing and identifying viruses.
“The lab is also coming along with the training opportunities for the health workers in many universities and health training schools in the region that are training nurses, laboratory technicians, clinical officers, and it will be a one-stop centre for the training of health workers,” Odur said.
He added that the laboratory will be getting samples coming from across the region through the ‘hub system’, with medical workers riding motorcycles going to the far end of the region and delivering samples and those that were not being handled in the past would be sent to the central public laboratory in Kampala.
The facility will also, according to the director, have special skills of health workers like pathologists and will be examining tissue samples that are provided by the health workers to help identify the conditions of the patients so that appropriate treatment can be obtained.
Aceng said more equipment shall be added to those at Lira Hospital to reduce the burden of travelling far to diagnosis.
She urged the locals to take advantage of the sophisticated machines in the laboratory to check their health status to be sure they are healthy, saying “the healthy community is a productive one."
Aceng, who is also Lira City Woman Member of Parliament, thanked the Government for responding to the needs of the region not only in the health sector but in road infrastructure, among others.
She said the oxygen plant and ambulance call and dispatch centre is currently under construction and will be commissioned soon, while the regional blood bank construction will kick off soon at Lira University, where the land has been provided.